Trial by media circus

[Maatandosiris]

The first thing to say is anyone who has committed rape absolutely needs to be brought to justice. The criminal
justice system needs to become more effective in protecting all victims of crime.

However, AIBU unreasonable to think that this weekends story about RB has been sinister for many other reasons, none of which are to do with RB.

Firstly the SM posts whipping people into a frenzy of some big reveal like some secret album release. Clues planted through various carefully placed posts, giving just enough detail to let people work things out (plus making people suggest other names) . It was an absolute circus, in the case of rape it turned accusations of serious crime into entertainment, no thought how anyone would be affected, whether ultimately guilty or innocent (maybe c4/The Times were trying to get new stories). Extremely bad taste at one end of the spectrum, devastating for innocent people at the other.

The ultimate agenda of both The Sunday Times and C4 is to make money. That’s it, neither is set up as the states arm of justice. There’s no inbuilt checks and balances. Yet somehow they are allowed to name an individual, accuse them of crimes (and effectively say they are guilty) without any of the safeguards and checks and balances of the criminal justice system applying.

People have lost all sense of justice. We have a man accused of something, an hour and a half of heavily hyped TV which holds some accusations but mainly a character assassination, The Sunday Times probably selling many more copies/getting many more subscribers with more of the sane one sided accusations.

Even on Mumsnet we have people already calling him a Rapist, people feeding into the frenzy of “he’s a creep”, “he’s a sex pest” etc etc. in other words, convicting him in their minds before this has gone anywhere near a court or jury.

How will this ever now be a fair trial? How will they find a jury who can 100% not have their views affected by this whole circus? If he is guilty will there ever be a safe conviction, how can we be confident that real justice has been done? What’s the risk of any conviction being overturned? This is not in the interests of either the alleged victim or the alleged perpetrator.

Questions are circulating all over SM as to the agendas at play. It’s fairly clear that the Sunday Times has been searching out victims. What were they saying to these people? What promises have been made?

if a crime has been committed this should be with the criminal justice system not Saturday night prime time TV with an associated heavy advertising campaign.

Im not sure whether RB is guilty or innocent, but that’s not what this post is about. AIBU to think that the way this witch hunt (which is what it is regardless of whether RB sinks or floats) is abhorrent and flies in the face of justice and that this has far wider and scarier implications for society than just this case. Who or what is next?

Going back to ‘why didn’t they give this evidence to the police’ does anyone know how unbelievably shit the links between our forces are? Under whose jurisdiction would this be investigated? Which underfunded force would take on the years of legwork to bring all the details together? It would never happen. You’d have to give the Met an incentive (against a backdrop of rape being almost legal) to crisscross the world putting together a case of persistent patterns of behaviour, each and every one of which possibly not meeting the threshold of conviction - or even charges. Whatever police system people think should be handling this, they are sadly mistaken in their faith. Try letting the police know you’ve been burgled even…. See what happens. Women and children are still forced by our courts to have relationships with the men who abuse them, it’s disgusting.

It’s like saying get rid of the NSPCC because social services should be doing their work. Well yeah, but can they do that work?

Heresay is the report of another person’s words by a third person.

These women’s testimonies are first person accounts of what happened to them. These testimonies are ‘evidence’ inside and outside of court.

Both sides were not reflected equally in the program. They have been investigating this for 3 years but he was only contacted this week. How is that fair?

The women were giving their first hand accounts of what happened to them. That is not and never can be hearsay evidence. In addition, the programme referred to corroborative evidence supporting the women’s accounts - they showed text messages and extracts from a rape crisis report for example. Also not hearsay evidence.

In fact the only hearsay evidence I can recall was from the single comedian who agreed to be interviewed who said ifhe allegations were well known in the industry Even that though wouldn’t be categorised as hearsay evidence in court because it was being relied upon not to demonstrate the truth of the allegations but to make the point that the broadcasters failed in their duty of care by not investigating the claims at the time or taking any other safeguarding actions.

The criminal justice system is not a justice system for survivors of rape. They circus that women have to go through, the absolute re-traumatization, the way 'defence attorneys'/Scum of the Earth get away with speaking to survivors is horrific. Right there on the stand.

No, I don't have a single ounce of sympathy left for rapists who will likely get away with it in our 'justice' system anyway.

RB is a powerful shitty man
speak up about him, he deserves it

I couldn’t agree more op, the whole program left me feeling very uneasy. I found it confusing in the way it jumped around timelines and mixed in stories of ex’s saying he had treated them badly (but no criminal issues) with people saying he had raped them. It seemed to be an absolute one sided character assassination with accusations of rape thrown in which absolutely does not seem the right way to treat rape accusations. It didn’t come across as professional and factual but more salacious gossip but yet with rape tossed in! I felt all in all it was an awfully put together 90 mins and just left me completely confused.

A shorter more factually based program focusing on the rape and sexual assault accusations only, would have been far more successful in highlighting the claims of those women involved. Raising questions to then be pursued, if that is what those woman wanted, which also wasn’t clear.

Mixing it in with the other stories like the claim of grooming which also left me feeling uncomfortable, a 16 year old has a relationship with a 30 year old self confessed ex drug, alcohol and sex addict and he didn’t treat her well, well no shit Sherlock, that doesn’t equate to grooming in my eyes like vulnerable women in Northern towns who were targeted by gangs, given money and drugs and then passed around groups of men and just made the whole program very murky.

We all know why these woman did not go to the police. They knew they would lose their jobs - be branded as ‘tarts’

Now with 5 woman he worked with and countless others who will come forward, can see Justice done. Even if the original 5 are dismissed in the grounds of an unfair trial he will be convicted.

Why are you focused on the how? Why not focus on Justice system for rape victims and explore why men get away with this behaviour?

Why not cheer that these woman have finally come together and raised their experiences and we should all be talking about them today.

They have been raped, and they can now come forward and prevent others suffering the same fate.

It wouldn’t have been fair to put partial allegations to him. They waited until they had put together the full roster of allegations and gave him and his lawyers an opportunity to give a detailed response or seek an injunction if they thought that would be warranted.

This was scheduled for broadcast at short notice and was edited right up to the wire to include his most recent statements. Had the lawyers indicated they needed more time to respond, with a programme of this seriousness, they would have been given it.

All of the former needs to be tested within a court of law though

The latter is heresay and wouldnt be able to be presented in a court of law about the rape.

Also the text messages that keep being referred to here were just apology messages, they could have been apologising for anything, they didn’t say I apologise for raping you or assaulting you and yet people are claiming this is evidence of guilt. I am a girl and the process and success of prosecuting rape is dreadful but equally I have boys who I would hate to be treated in this way being found guilty by tge media and the public with no due process.

While not wishing to distract from the subject in any way, I must tell you that DH thought they were talking about Russell Grant... 🙄

I completely agree with you Op, innocent until proven guilty.
I only read a few lines of one of the articles and have no interest in reading any more until a verdict is given. To be perfectly honest I’m bored with these kind of stories, every few months some celebrity is tortured by the media. That rag called the Daily mail is just making millions from these stories.
Maybe he’s guilty, maybe not, none of us know as we weren’t there, let’s wait for the verdict.

Ooh the position put forward over years and months or putting together an hour and a half programme/article was somehow more compelling than a 5 min you tube clip that had to be hastily pulled together - you don’t say!!!

Is Jimmy Savvile innocent then?

And the possible trauma and abuse of women and girls is boring to you? Really?

By which time there was 24 hours of whipping people up in social media, by the time RB put out his statement everyone knew who it was and the accusations- stopping the programme wouldn’t have done anything. The clear placing of “clues” across SM I’m the days leading up to the programme were clearly done with this purpose so by the time the programme went to air most people watching up would have already had in their minds home was a terrible character and probably guilty. Can you honestly not see what was happening?

The Times / Despatches can publish this story because it is deemed in the public interest to do so.

And for the same reason Brand will not win a libel or defamation case against them.

So in terms of the legalities why do we just talk about this as being trial by media rather than robust investigative journalism that much be of sufficient standard to pass legal checks to publish?

The investigation involved hundred of interviews with people. The journalists approached these women. Not the other way around. So for various reasons, other people knew what had happened long before. From what people have said on this thread any others you'd think it was the women who were coming out now in an act of revenge for personal profit and it was just four people not hundreds. You can tell the posters who haven't read the Times article or watched the documentary very clearly from missing important details like this.

Then these women have been selected because their stories have the most evidence to back up what they say. That doesn't mean other stories werent heard or considered. These were the ones that stood up to a threshold. This threshold is different to establishing criminal rape. The journalists set out to establish a pattern of abusive behaviour and contempt for women and sexual boundaries. This is a legitimate aim and a legitimate point for someone in a position of power. It shows abuse of power.

And more than that, Brand himself isn't necessarily the target. It's the institutionalised nature in which management ignored concerns and complaints and carried on despite inappropriate behaviour.

So criminality doesn't need to be an issue here. It is sufficient to say that Brand did not respect the personal boundaries of women - of which there is plenty of video evidence for and that this enabled dreadful behaviour to women.

The more serious allegations come as part of this pattern. Anyone with a pattern of ignoring women's boundaries and pestering constantly for sex isn't far off having a legal issue.

More over one of the women had text that see her say she said no and no means no. And he apologised to her. She also had documentation of her going to a rape crisis centre.

Why didn't she go to the police? Precisely because she'd have been alone in saying these things and he was at the height of his fame. And the attack was in the US not UK.

So why go public now? Firstly because we are post Metoo and the culture has changed somewhat. Secondly because there was strength in numbers. And thirdly because someone started to believe them.

Underlying all this is the toxic mix of attitudes about where consent begins (but not where it ends), victim blaming and a total lack of trust in the justice system. And that's what is the most compelling thing. The justice system is failing before it even begins precisely because of the lack of trust and because women are treated as criminals themselves.

Throughout these threads the theme is 'why didn't SHE do this?' Never 'why was he thinking this was ok?'. The onus is ALWAYS on the women's behaviour and the fact they don't match up to the myth of the perfect victim. It's never about how the man is, at best, constantly overstepping and putting himself into a grey area where consent might be withdrawn or be under intimidation or duress.

Even a few weeks ago a woman was kissed on live TV and said she was uncomfortable with it and it wasn't consensual and this wasn't believed. The justification was she picked up someone therefore she had consented to being kissed too. Which is bullshit.

Even with presented with the most compelling of evidence people don't believe stuff they don't want to. Celebrity status can often aid this. Even with the Lucy Letby criminal case there were posters saying the evidence wasn't good enough or it was flimsy. Despite the fact they hadn't gone to court everyday for months on end and were just going off media reports. And the jury deciding she was guilty.

Investigative journalism has it's place in our society. It is designed and supposed to fill the gaps in our legal system or where the lega system has failed. It's the point of liberal democracy and it's checks and balances. This is it working as it should. It is asking questions, which beg for culture change.

The alternative is women maintain their silence. And in doing so, what happens? Nothing that's what.

What I find far far more sinister are the comments on here that are trying to dismiss and minimise the testimony of the women and underplay the programme as random hearsay.

I wouldn't be so sure.

The Sun published allegations against Huw Edwards without naming him at that time, implying he was a child sex offender despite the alleged victim contacting them to say the allegations made by their parents were false. And the parents in question having already gone to the Police and been told on the information given, no crime had been committed.

So numerous BBC presenters were tried by social media accusing them of being paedophiles. And when Huw Edwards was named, you had thousands of posts of social media including MN accusing him of being a predatory paedophile, how this was the tip of the iceberg, there will be more victims, comparisons to Jimmy Saville, accusations of cover-ups etc.

And a few weeks later after publishing some lame 'other allegations' and unable to find anything more, The Sun said "sorry, we didn't mean to imply anything illegal took place. We'll stop publishing about it now".

RB case seems to have been more rigorously investigated but I think the "they wouldn't publish unless they were sure" idea shouldn't inspire confidence.

The news media is there for clicks and income and to generate social media posts. If they do a good thing by exposing someone, that's a side effect not the motivation.

They're all pretty shitty parasites who lie frequently or spin. They don't become eminently trustworthy just because they say something we like or agree with.

And before anyone jumps to think I'm defending RB, I'm not. I think it's highly likely what's been said is true.

how do you feel about the trial by media of Huw Edwards and Philip Schofield?
the same?

Did you watch it? Most of the accusers were anonymised and played by actors.

oh and of course Jimmy Saville, who had already died

Agree
And investigative journalism is expensive and risky for organisations and it isn't all about profit. Some aspects of the media actual do a very important role in holding powerful people accountable and don't do that for profit but because they believe in proper investigative journalism.
This isn't some sensational headline based on a tip off by someone who met Brand pissed at a night club.

@AngryGreasedSantaCatcus

You clearly haven read what I wrote,

I never said I thought he was innocent, I said that we need to wait for a fair trial and verdict where both sides of the story are reviewed.
I personally don’t start damning people without hearing all the facts and both sides of the story which you clearly do.

You can argue all you want but I know I’m being reasonable and fair about this!??

I rejoice at this. RB has dined out on his abusive and contemptous treatment of women for years. Now the chickens have come home to roost. Did you see the clips from his shows? Someone who respects women does not speak about them like that.

Bring it on. Guys who behave like this deserve to be brought down. It makes the world a better place for women, one abusive creep at a time.